The Birds of Shakespeare 
Nay, if thou be that princely eagle’s bird, 
Show thy descent by gazing ’gainst the sun." 
With delightful hyperbole, Biron, in Love’s 
Labour’s Lost, discovers a power of vision 
beyond that of an eagle, when he is per- 
suading himself and his friends to abjure 
their foolish vow “to fast, to study, and 
to see no woman.” Enlarging on the 
potency of “love first learned in a lady’s 
eyes” he declares that it 
Gives to every power a double power, 
Above their functions and their offices. 
It adds a precious seeing to the eye: 
A lover’s eyes will gaze an eagle blind ; 
A lover’s ear will hear the lowest sound, 
When the suspicious head of theft is stopp’d.? 
Again, in the same Play, the comparison 
becomes even more grotesquely exag- 
gerated, for the same lover in praising 
his lady-love demands to know 
What peremptory eagle-sighted eye 
Dares look upon the heaven of her brow, 
That is not blinded by her majesty °° 
1g Henry V1, 11.1. 1. 2a .(ail, BS. SiV.ill, eae. 
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